Pedricktown native Anthony Slusher rode a bicycle 3,785 miles across the United States as part of the Bike the US for MS group to raise money for multiple sclerosis research. The trip started in Yorktown, Va. (shown here) June 1 and ended in San Francisco August 1.
(Photo provided)

Anthony Slusher got the idea watching a show on the Discovery Channel when he was 10 years old — one day he was going to ride a bike all the way across America.

When he finally got the chance, it was most certainly a journey of discovery for the Pedricktown native.

With no experience and little training for long-distance cycling, Slusher left from Yorktown, Va., June 1 with a group of 18 full-time and several more part-time cyclists raising money for multiple sclerosis research and volunteering with patients. Two months and 3,785 miles later, Slusher and his team arrived on the beach in San Francisco — and he was a changed man.

“When I was 10 years old, I watched a program I think on the Discovery Channel about two guys who biked across America. Ever since then I wanted to do it,” Slusher said shortly after arriving by the Golden Gate Bridge Aug. 1. “It wasn’t just about riding my bike across the country, there was a lot more to it. My aunt has MS and I know a couple of other people with it.

“I met the most incredible people along the way. It was the craziest two months of my life, but it was worth it.”

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After spending his freshman year at Penns Grove High School, Slusher moved to St. Mark’s in Delaware where he graduated in 2005. He got his degree from West Chester University in 2009, and is currently a health and physical education teacher at Kuumba Academy Charter School in Wilmington.

With his summers free, he figured now was the time to take a shot at his dream.

At first he was going to try to make the journey alone despite never having done any long-distance bike riding and having no experience repairing a bicycle. But with his brother’s urging and a bit of online research he found Bike the US for MS, a group that organizes annual trips cross country to raise money and awareness for multiple sclerosis.

View full sizeAnthony Slusher rode a bike nearly 4,000 miles this summer and found it a life-changing experience that proved to him that life is indeed good.Photo provided

The group requires at least 500 miles on the bike you’ll use for the trip as well as advance fundraising of $1 per mile of the trip, so once Slusher had made up his mind to join the group he was scrambling to get ready. It was also where he got his first taste of the goodness in people.

“I was going to try to do the tour by myself, (but) my brother Adam (the Penns Grove High School baseball coach) told me I was stupid,” Slusher laughed. “So I searched on the Internet and found this. I had to raise $3,785 just to be able to go, and I was able to do it in just a couple of months.

“(We held) a huge bowling tournament in Woodstown with a 50-50 raffle, we raised most of the money there. We did a fundraiser at my school, I teach in an inner-city school and I had kindergartners coming up and giving me their piggy banks. The crazy thing was a lot of the money came from places you’d least expect it, but it all worked out.”

As the time for his departure from Virginia drew near, he spent every day after school on 40-mile bike rides to prepare for the trip. Then the trip began, and he realized he had no idea what he was in for.

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Virginia is just a few hours south of New Jersey, but as anyone can tell you the terrain is quite a bit different. It was a lesson that Slusher learned very quickly as his group took smaller two-lane roads by day to avoid more dangerous and illegal major interstates and highways, and often made their own accomodations at night.

“Riding around New Jersey is nothing compared to riding over the Appalachians or the Rocky Mountains,” said Slusher. “We had the full-on roughing it and camped out every night. We stayed mostly at campsites, some churches opened up to us. There was a whole week I didn’t shower. You had to wake up the next day and bike another 80 miles.

“The Appalachian Mountains were the hardest for me, especially because it was the beginning of the trip. The first two weeks were brutal. Our total mileage was 60, but 40 of it was straight up. Somehow we all made it, but there were definitely days where we hit the wall.”

View full sizeAnthony Slusher poses with his bike on the beach in San Francisco moments after completing his 3,785-mile, two-month ride across the U.S. The Golden Gate Bridge is in the background.Photo provided

Slusher credited his teammates with keeping him going throughout the trip — there were several people over 50 along for the trip, and even a 61-year-old — as well as the support van that made the trip and provided water and food when needed. The many people he and the group met along the way were a welcome bonus.

“People would see our jerseys and ask what we were doing and would give us $100, pay for our breakfast,” he said. “Somebody knows somebody who has MS. They do this route every year, and we got to meet people with MS and see where the money goes.”

Slusher and the Bike the US team presented a check for $50,000 to a clinic in Virginia, did landscaping for a woman who couldn’t tend her lawn and gardening any more because of the disease. The group worked to organize a service project for each of five off-days.

But the journey itself was beyond anything Slusher had ever imagined. One night a bear entered their campsite, just 10 feet from his tent, and ate all the food.

He slept through it. But seemingly every day brought something that the Salem County native had never experienced.

“The furthest west I’d ever been was Tennessee, and I’d visited my brother in Texas,” said Slusher. “Every day I was waking up somewhere I’d never been before. Colorado is the most beautiful state I’ve ever seen, I think I want to move out there sometime.

“The coolest thing was being away from electronics, I barely had (cell phone) service the whole trip. You’re forced to talk to everybody, enjoy each other’s company because there’s nothing else to do. It’s a lost art, and it really makes you appreciate it. I know more about some of the people on the trip than I do my own family.”

But his family flew out to San Francisco to surprise him when the team arrived, as all the families did. It gave him just one more memory to cap off the trip.

“It was really powerful,” Slusher said. “I sat down in that sand for an hour and just tried to take it in. Did I just really do this? It was crazy. That was when I realized we made it.”

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View full sizeAnthony Slusher poses with his parents, who surprised him by flying out to meet him in San Francisco for the end of his two-month cycling journey across the U.S.Photo provided

Slusher spent the better part of a week in California with his family before returning home to Pedricktown, and had time to appreciate what he accomplished. Then he began to think about what he was going to do next.

He mentioned backpacking across Europe, but hasn’t made up his mind.

But one thing is for sure — his whole outlook on life has been affected by the trip, and he had some immediate plans upon his return that exemplified that shift.

“I was telling my parents, I lived out of a 30-inch cubby and a duffel bag all summer,” Slusher said. “I’m going to go through and throw away so much stuff. It’s definitely going to make me appreciate hot water, wi-fi, good food, a bed to sleep in, clean clothes.

“When I start complaining about stupid stuff the rest of my life, I’ll think I’m not climbing up the Rockies on a bike. When the air conditioning breaks in my house, I’ll think about the desert in Nevada where some nights it was so hot you couldn’t even sleep. You kind of take a lot of things for granted.”